North Vancouver incumbent Conservative candidate Ted White has threatened legal action against an election commentary Website for posting defamatory emails. Election Prediction Project moderator Milton Chan removed the offending messages, commenting that "While we disagree with Mr. White's point that those (emails) constitute defamation, as a volunteer-run project, we are in no position to fight a legal case...We would state without reservation that Election Prediction Project does not have or care to have a position regarding whether Mr. White is a racist."

The defamatory emails were based, in part, on a statement Mr. White made in the House of Commons in March in which he claimed, "At least 40 percent of all the Iranians living (in my riding) are refugee claimants. Most of them are bogus...I cannot say how many times that comment has been made to me by the decent Iranian immigrants in my riding who came in using the proper system." Nor was that the first controversial comment Mr. White had evidently made about this ethnic community.

Back in February, the North Shore News' editorial board accused Mr. White of "suggesting that Iranian-Canadians shouldn't be joining the Conservative party in numbers large enough to swing" a nomination battle. At the time, Mr. White was fighting off an ultimately unsuccessful nomination challenge from a candidate who had registered 300 new Iranian party members at the last minute.

In a letter sent to fellow travellers, Mr. White warned that, because of those signups, the constituency association could "stand to lose all of the money in our election war chest, all of the assets we have built up for the election campaign and even our seat in the Parliament of Canada."

Mr. White previously ran for the separatist Western Canada Concept party in North Vancouver Seymour during the 1983 provincial election. According to a National Post editorial published on May 16, 2000, the party, which was founded by controversial lawyer Doug Christie, "promotes the preservation of a Christian, European heritage." Mr. Christie's clients have included Holocaust deniers Ernst Zundel and James Keegstra.